Choosing a hospital...

[babyNP., APRN]

Hey everyone,

May be having kids in a few years and am starting to look around at my area hospitals. I was wondering what you guys think one should look for in a birthing hospital. The obvious for me (given my profession, lol) is that that they have a decent NICU. Other than that...I've been looking at my insurance's rankings of the local hospitals and am flummoxed.

One rating is about the overall maternal mortality and complications...but some hospitals are more high-risk and therefore have higher mortalities/complications because of it through no fault of their own. Same thing runs through my head about patient stays because some hospitals obviously have higher acuities.

Another rating is overall patient satisfaction...but as a nurse, I know that it's about the level of care given that's important...not if the RN ran to get you water whenever you asked

Any resources to look at? Mods, if this is inappropriate for the forum, please delete.

[CEG]

I would think more towards what kind of provider and what kind of birth you would like. If you want a midwife or low tech birth, look for a hospital that supports that. If you want a more technological birth choose based on that. Maternal mortality stats are so dilute (6/100,000) that it's tough to judge a facility based on them. Also consider birth centers depending on what your desires are.

Unfortunately, hospitals are not required to give out their stats on c-sections and other interventions (except in a couple of states) but if you can get that info that would be helpful.

There is a childbirth provider survey on the net somewhere where you can look at patient's ranking of providers. Can't remember the name of it now, hopefully someone can come on and tell you.

Also, as far as the NICU thing it would not be a high consideration on my list unless I felt I was at risk for complications. I have worked in several different facilities and I have found that where higher level care is available it gets used more-- i.e. a baby that could be observed in mom's room goes to NICU because there are beds available as opposed to a hospital with no NICU. Others will definitely disagree with that, but that is my logic. Just like I wouldn't necessarily choose the hospital with the best SICU to have my elective minor surgery.